This was PrairieCon 2022!

So this past weekend, Conscript Mike F and I travelled to Brandon to attend and run games at PrairieCon XLI, the 2022 iteration of, as an old program wonderfully put it, "Western Manitoba's Only Gaming Convention." :-)

I ran the old reliable Gaslands (twice) and my Battle of Hoth game with Star Wars: Legion models and using the Bolt Action rules. First up - Gaslands. I ran a game on Saturday morning with two players and me, and it was fun - but I think the early hour (first slot of the convention, 9am) maybe trimmed off some participants.

 

Anyway at 2pm I ran the game again with 5 players, mostly all buddies. Each player picked a pre-generated 2-car team, put them on the table and blazed away. Here's some photos from the games...

In game 1 the new player picked up the rules very quickly and was executing tricky maneuvers in no time. 

Rear-facing rocket launchers on the buggy made short work of a biker!

The brown buggy took a lap around the table staying out of trouble.

With only one hull point left the driver lined up his opposite number for a head one crash.

KABOOM!

In game 2 the group of friends picked things up fast as well.

Collisions and carnage definitely abounded.

On Sunday morning I ran my Battle of Hoth game. Rich and Darryl took control of the Imperial forces. Their objective was mainly to enter the Rebel deployment zone (behind their trench line) with secondary objectives to destroy Rebel units.

The Rebels deployed in the trench line mostly, prepared to repel the Imperial assault.

The Imperials were pretty disciplined and engaged Run orders to move across the table. The Snowtroopers had the "Recycle" special rule and when a unit was destroyed, it reappeared 18" behind its point of furthest advance. 

Luke appeared from Reserve on the Imperial table edge, trying to make it back to Echo Base after crashing his snowspeeder and destroying an AT-AT off table. He used the Force to put Pin markers on the Imperial E-Web Blaster but ran into a squad of elite Imperial Naval Troopers - it did not end well.

Luke never got a chance to charge in with his lightsaber - the Naval Troopers activated first and even though Luke deflected most of their blaster bolts, he ultimately failed a Deflect roll and was... "defeated". 

On one flank the Imperials continued the advance.

Meanwhile on the other Rebel flank, Vader ran ahead of his snowtroopers and engaged a heavily Pinned Rebel squad all by hisself. This almost ended badly as well, because although Vader cut down a bunch of Rebels, one trooper managed to roll "6 followed by 6" to wound! Vader only escaped defeat by using his Parry rule to make the trooper reroll that successful wound, and sadly another 6 failed to come up. 

Way to go, Dark Lord of the Sith - you defeated three Rebel soldiers. Good for you!

The game concluded with the Imperials having destroyed four Rebel units (4 VPs) and managing to get one unit in the Rebel zone (2VPs). The Rebels destroyed four Imperial units (including the mighty AT-ST!) and didn't exit any units of their own in the six turns we played. A really fun game and I have to give props once again to Jay of  Jay's Wargaming Madness for the basis of the Bolt Action conversion I used for the game. I did make a few more changes to Jay's original mods but I think it worked out great for a convention game.

Pretty cool right? That's some commitment to cosplay right there... 

PrairieCon was a great time as always. Getting to see my old gaming buddies again (after three years away!) was amazing, and running games and auctioneering at the world-famous game auction was a blast as always. I did make one big purchase at the auction too - a large cardboard "mystery box" full of about 10lbs of old lead figures, for which, after hotly contested bidding, I paid a sum that was significant. Suffice to say that the product boxes in the big box weren't exactly 100% accurate as to their contents, but I figure I did OK, as the lot game with a full boxed set of Eldar Harlequins from the Rogue Trader era, most of the box of Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers, plus a LOAD of original plastic and metal Squats, and some RT Imperial Guard, RT Chaos Space Marines, RT Space Orks, etc.... so we'll call that fair. I have a feeling it'll be a "tale that grows in the telling" though, as the day after the auction I was told that I'd actually spent DOUBLE what I paid for the lot. By next PrairieCon I'm sure I'll be said to have spent five thousand dollars on them or something. 

Star Wars: Legion 3D Rebel Speeder Bike and Imperial Naval Troopers from Ham Solo

So in preparation for this year's Battle of Hoth game at PrairieCon in Brandon, I'm painting a few more models for the Rebel and Imperial forces. And in keeping with the recent vogue, these aren't licensed minis from Fantasy Flight (or whatever they're called nowadays), but rather 3D prints from excellent online vendor Ham Solo!

This model is super-cool - two Rebels on a captured speeder, the rider concentrating on driving the thing and the pillion passenger leaning off ready to drop a mine. 

 

The model is a 3D resin print and came in several parts, but wasn't too tough to assemble - some of the parts are fiddly though and care is required in assembly. It also comes with the Legion base and clear and opaque printed support pegs.

I painted the riders in my standard Hoth Rebel colours - Rakarth Flesh, XV-88, Zandri Dust, Corax White, White Scar, and Ushabti Bone.

Great character evident in the sculpts of these two dudes. The file is from Squamous Miniatures and was printed for me by Ham Solo.

Gotta have some more Imperials to fight those Rebels though right? This is a unit of Imperial Naval Troopers designed by Raven X Studios and again printed by Ham Solo. I really like these guys too, they're equipped with the distinctive "cheesegrater" helmets (so called by the Star Wars costume design department) and lead by an officer in a standard Imperial Navy soft cap.

Not a great deal of variety to the paintwork on these guys - Vallejo Dark Rubber, Mechanicus Standard Grey, and Dawnstone mostly, with Leadbelcher for the metal details.

 

The models are a bit on the large side, even for Legion, but they'll be OK. These are basically the "grenadiers" of the Imperial Navy and will be used in my game as Vader's personal bodyguard.

Officer to lead the group.

The group even includes a comms trooper with backpack comms unit. 

I might try a last push to get another squad of Rebels done, but we'll see. Playtesting will happen this Thursday. We'll be using a conversion for the Bolt Action ruleset from the Jay's Wargaming Madness blog and I'm really looking forward to it!

Painting Challenge Submission 18 - Jyn Erso's Team from "Rogue One"

Ready to take a chance, until all of the chances are spent...

For my final submission to the 12th Edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I went with a selection of 32mm figures for the game "Star Wars: Legion". The figures are a mix of "Fantasy Flight Games" miniatures and 3D prints sourced via Etsy.

I caved in to temptation and started "Star Wars: Legion" last year. The rules are so baroque and overly complicated that I find them to be barely playable - but the miniatures are generally great, and since there are a lot of other rules options with which to use these figures, I have been diving more and more into it. The range of figures from Fantasy Flight (or Atomic Mass, or Private Equity Tools, or whatever they are called these days) is fairly complete, and includes a number of character figures from the "Rogue One" movie.Even better, there is an amazing and talented community of 3D-print file designers out there filling in the gaps - and in this submission we find both kinds of figures.

Nearly all of the "Star Wars" films made under the Disney banner have been very poor. The three sequel films in particular were a tour-de-force in appalling film making, ranging from "very bad film with lazy writing that somehow makes the prequels tolerable in comparison" to "human excrement rendered as a digital HD experience". But there is one exception amid the Disney film wreckage - "Rogue One". It's awesome, just a great film, and certainly my favourite film of the whole Star Wars bunch. As DaveV introduced me to the 3D-printed-figure world for "Star Wars: Legion", I immediately ordered some characters inspired by "Rogue One".

So we have Bodhi Rook, the "brave defector" - this is a 3D printed figure.

Bodhi Rook, ready to help engineer a landing in a captured Imperial shuttle.

We have Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus, the displaced guardians of the Jedi temple. These are also 3D printed figures.

I love the pose on this sculpt - amazing to see what the 3D printing folks can do these days...

Love that weapon!

We have a team of Rebel Pathfinders - these are from the box set of the same name from Fantasy Flight Games. These are lovely sculpts, but the plastic-resin used in the manufacturing is bendy and crappy. Once you get the paint on them, they are not too bad, but I have ordered some additional Pathfinders from a 3D print supplier to expand this force later on.

Love that door-gunner character...only downside is that it makes the Pathfinder box very bespoke...hard to add variety when all of the figures are so specific. But lovely sculpts.

The Pathfinder team, ready for action!

And last, but not least, we have the amazing Jyn Erso, the young rebel who sets aside bitterness, cynicism and sadness to challenge the evil of the Galactic Empire head-on. This figure is from Fantasy Flight Games. I'm hoping Jyn will be an acceptable figure for a ride on Sarah's Star Yacht!

The sculpting is nice...Jyn is ready to break a knee to make her points...

Prior to the Challenge, I had painted Cassian Andor and the sincere-yet-tactless droid K-2S0 - both figures from Fantasy Flight Games. They won't count for points here, but it seemed wrong to leave them out of the group photo...

Ten people, ready to fight like a hundred...

Cassian and K2 lurking in the back of the group photo...

This was my final submission to AHPC XII. Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment, and congratulations to all participants, particularly my fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscripts, who have made huge progress against their unpainted figure piles. All the best to everyone!

"Now THIS is podracing!" - Challenge Submission #4

 After recently watching Episode 5 of 'The Book of Boba Fett' TV show, I put aside the project I was working on and dug out an unbuilt, 1/48 scale diecast N1 Naboo Starfighter, from 'Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace'. I built it stock. (I also traded with Conscript FrederickC for an all-plastic snapfast kit, to eventually turn into The Mandalorian's rat rod version of the ship, seen in that episode.)

The pilot figure in the diecast kit is little Ani Skywalker, a 9-year-old kid. It looked somewhat blob-like to me, but after black priming and zenithal highlighting, it turned out to have a fair amount of detail. After some GW washes, I did some detailing and blending with artists' oils.

R2-D2 rides in the astromech slot behind the cockpit; after black priming I sprayed his head with Tamiya aluminum paint from a can. Details and carbon scoring were done with oils.

The cockpit had some details, mostly not screen accurate, which I just picked out with acrylics and washes, after gray priming.

The N1 starfighter is a  mostly metal kit, with either yellow enamel already painted on, or polished metal parts, and a clear canopy. I screwed it together with the provided screws, setting them into place with locktite fluid, and covering the screw heads with the provided metal caps. I added some of the 22-year-old decals, which fortunately did not disintegrate after liberal use of decal set and solvent solutions.

At some point I will have to go back and add some weathering to this ship. Blaster residue, exhaust stains, and such.

3D-Printed Star Wars Legion Snowtroopers from Squamous Miniatures

 

I'll admit it: I have a problem. It's a problem with Star Wars. Basically whatever kind of miniatures someone comes out with for Star Wars gaming, I eventually get sucked down the rabbit hole. Star Wars Miniature Battles, Star Wars Starship Battles, even West End Games stuff. I've been strong on some fronts - I managed to resist Imperial Assault and Armada, and even Star Wars: Legion for the longest time, but eventually the quality and coolness of the latter's models just wore me down.

The key to resistance is to limit the scope of the project. For Legion, I've decided to concentrate on the Hoth battle from The Empire Strikes Back, and limit the project to that theatre. AND THAT'S IT. So far, it's actually been a successful strategy. However, the emergence of third-party non-official models has really threatened the integrity of my plan. Witness these very cool 3D-printed snowtroopers from Squamous Miniatures.

Squamous funds its operations through Patreon and "sells" 3D files of models that supporters can print themselves. In my case it was Conscript Byron M who came through with physical resin prints of these 12 snowtroopers. They were painted in the simple scheme I've used on dozens of snowtroopers before - Rakarth Flesh, washed with Agrax Earthshade and highlighted back up, with the armour, webbing, and backpack painted Corax White with White Scar highlights. Clean up the eyes, drybrush weapons with Mechanicus Standard Grey, done.

The models are excellent sculpts and are all one-piece with no assembly required - they even come with files to print the bases. The poses are great (mostly) and they scale pretty much exactly to the official Legion models.

See what I mean? Squamous snowtrooper on the left, official Legion snowtrooper on the right.

And unlike the other third-party snowtroopers I got from Wargames 3D, the armour and gear on these Squamous models are pretty much identical to the official models. Score!

So I think this completes the Imperial forces for the project. I have a Rebel snowspeeder yet to paint, and will probably succumb to the charms of a box of Tauntauns, but escalation is well under control... I think...